Keeping up with changing technologies means CIOs have to go through a mountain of information, and then decide which of it — if any — is useful to their company. ZDNet.com.au delves into how they do it.
Sourcing — the information has to come from somewhere
According to CIOs and consultants, there are a variety of information sources out there, including CIO councils, analysts, vendors, conferences, exhibitions and media/Internet — but who should you listen to?
The Internet's not good for real information.
George Lymbers, CIO Anglican Church, Sydney Diocese
CIO councils are a popular choice among a number of CIOs: George Lymbers, CIO of the Anglican Church, Sydney diocese, named them as one of his preferred sources. Australian Computer Society (ACS) President Kumar Parakala echoed Lymbers sentiments, saying they play an important role because CIOs do a very individual job that only other CIOs can really understand.
"CIOs are very lonely people," he added.
If CIOs are happy to listen to their peers, they're slightly more sceptical when it comes to listening to the companies whose products they buy.
Vendors receive mixed reviews, unsurprisingly, for their habit of putting their own spin on the information. Speaking at the IDC Directions 08 conference recently, Jim Barclay, CIO of Logan City Council, gave vendors the thumbs down: "The one I'd read the least would be the vendor's brochures," he said.
The ACS's Parakala was more equivocal in his view of suppliers. "There are companies out there that understand the industry needs and industry," he said, but cautioned that when vendors present their information, CIOs can "get all the gloss" and "miss the reality".
The Church's Lymbers and Steve Godbee, IBM CIO ANZ, both said they speak to analysts such as Gartner or IDC to get the low-down on technology, but Accenture's strategic IT effectiveness team leader Grant Barker said that analysts can be "unencumbered by reality to a certain extent".
He added that while analysts are useful for "thinking even further out of the box", suppliers such as Accenture or IBM can be more useful because they always have "how do you make it happen?" in the back of their minds.
While it's not surprising that CIOs will turn to the old favourites, the Internet and the media to research technology, the wealth of information on the Web is not without its pitfalls. According to Peter Ryan, consulting partner at Deloitte, the media and the Web need to be looked at with a critical eye, while Church CIO Lymbers doesn't think of the Internet as a genuinely useful source of information: "The Internet's not good for real information. You can get snippets of information and you can think that's interesting... To get real information you need to go to conferences."
According to the ACS's Parakala, one of the best sources for getting information on technology is...
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